Guardian of Lies

FIFTY-TWO

Yakov woke to the sound of a train, the diesel engine switching gears somewhere off in the distance. He was lying facedown, spittle running from the corner of his mouth. What looked like a gray linen sheet and the open end of a matching pillowcase inches from his face transformed itself to soiled white as it slowly came into focus. There were stains that looked and smelled like motor oil or grease.

For some reason he was famished. The rumbling in his stomach competed for attention with the noise of the diesel engine. He tried to recall when he had eaten last. It was at dinner in the common dining area. Since he never ate much, the meal, some chicken, potatoes, a healthy portion of salad, and bread, should have been plenty.

He began to roll over, then covered his eyes with his hand. Nitikin’s head felt as if it were a melon about to split. He could tell by the bright sunlight that it was morning, but he had no idea where he was.

He remembered waking up on the cot in his hut, the piercing beam of the flashlight in his eyes, and the helicopter with its giant rotors whipping the air in the clearing. In his mind he could see the large steel container with its open door yawning wide, waiting to swallow him.

Yakov lay there for what must have been several minutes. But try as he might he could remember almost nothing after entering the cargo container. He recalled seeing the wooden crate, the pressure of his back against the hard metal wall. He had a foggy image of Alim, his cold, evil eyes looking down, his lips moving, saying something. Nitikin couldn’t be sure if the image was real or imagined.

He touched his naked wrist and realized that his watch wasn’t there. He remembered trying to find it in the bag under his bed but being stopped by the interpreter. Then suddenly he reached down and felt for the shape and the hard plastic of the cell phone in his pants pocket. It was still there. Yakov took a deep breath, brought his hands up, and pressed his fingers to his temples. He closed his eyes and tried to stop the spinning motion.

As the fog in his head began to clear, his eyes focused farther out, on the room and his surroundings. He was dizzy with the constant sensation of motion. The shaft of light piercing the room through the small round window in the wall was also in motion, as were the thin gauze drapes that seemed to dance from the rod above the window. Slowly it settled on him, he remembered the Port of Tumaco, and realized he was on board a ship, but for how long?

Yakov struggled to sit up. He lifted his leaden legs and dropped his feet onto the floor. No wonder they were so heavy, he was still wearing his boots. He crunched with his abdominals as he pushed with his arms, lifting his upper body until he was sitting upright at the edge of the bed. The blood raced to his stomach as his head pounded.

He sat there for two or three minutes unable to move as he collected his strength and looked at the door. The nausea rising in his stomach suddenly curbed his appetite.

Yakov stood up and then stumbled over to the washbasin in the small bathroom. He doused his face with water, then checked the phone in his pocket for any sign of a cell signal. The little screen read NO SERVICE. The time on the screen read 11:22. It was almost noon. He couldn’t remember if there was a change in time zones between the encampment in Colombia and Panama City.

When Nitikin tried to open the door to the cabin he found it was locked. He tried releasing the four steel-handled levers that sealed the door tight. Yakov couldn’t budge them. Somehow they’d been jammed from the outside. He went back into the bathroom, grabbed a tin cup, and started banging on the steel door until, a few seconds later, the door swung open, revealing one of Alim’s minions standing there with an assault rifle pointed at him.

As he was escorted along the deck at the point of a rifle, Yakov looked to see if he could find any sight of land off to his right. He saw nothing but open ocean. He wondered how long before they would get to Panama. His mind began to search for methods to slip away, to make his phone call to Maricela, and perhaps to escape. But first he had to know that his daughter was safe. He would tell her to run, to get away from her house. She had relatives in Limón, on the Caribbean coast. He would tell her to go there and hide out. If he survived, he would try to find her.

He passed crewmen going about their chores but Nitikin didn’t recognize any of them. The men glanced at him. None of them seemed particularly concerned by the fact that the man walking behind Yakov was carrying an automatic weapon. Since the crewmen weren’t being guarded themselves, Nitikin had to assume that somehow the ship’s company had been bought off or co-opted by Alim.

As they approached the superstructure at the front of the ship, the guard pushed Yakov with his rifle toward a set of stairs. They climbed up four decks and arrived on the wing of the bridge, where the guard pushed him toward an open door and the wheelhouse.

Inside, Alim and his interpreter were talking to another man. They were studying the screen of a small monitor mounted on the console next to the ship’s wheel. Another crew member was steering the ship.

Nitikin couldn’t understand what Alim was saying. But as the translator repeated it in Spanish, Yakov realized that the men were trying to fix the precise position of the ship on the vessel’s GPS navigational system.

The captain was a Latino, but from the Spanish vernacular he used, Yakov could tell he was not Colombian or Costa Rican. He couldn’t quite place the accent, but he might be Mexican.

The answer to Nitikin’s burning question, the distance from Panama, came a second later when the captain looked at the screen and told the interpreter that they were less than twenty-four hours from their destination.

When he heard it, this seemed to please Alim. Afundi then turned his attention to Yakov. He asked him how he was feeling. Yakov said he would feel much better if his men stopped pointing their guns at him. Except for that, he was fine, although he was hungry.

Alim said something to the interpreter, who told the captain to contact the galley to prepare some food and something to drink for Yakov.

Afundi turned back to the Russian, said something to the interpreter, who asked Nitikin whether he’d had a chance to check the bomb. Though Yakov had no recollection of it, according to Alim the container had been handled very roughly as it was loaded onto the ship. The fact that Alim was willing to talk openly about the cargo in front of the captain and the other crew member told Yakov all he needed to know about the ship’s company. No doubt they had been well paid.

“How could I possibly check the device? I’ve been locked up all night.”

Alim told him to check it and to report back if there was any problem.

“How long before we arrive in Panama?” asked Nitikin.

As soon as it was translated, Alim looked at him through snake eyes, then offered a sinister smile and spoke.

“He wants to know why you think we’re going to Panama.”

“Tell him I am informed by intuition because of my Gypsy blood,” said Yakov.

Alim laughed.

Apparently the Russian still had a sense of humor.

But that wasn’t why Afundi was laughing. Nitikin didn’t know it but thanks to the extended fuel tanks on the helicopter and the fact that Yakov had been maintained in an unconscious state in his cabin for almost four days, they were now nearly three thousand miles north of Panama City, a few hundred miles beyond Cabo San Lucas and just forty-two miles off the coast of Mexico’s Baja peninsula. By midafternoon tomorrow they would be tied up at the dock of the international cargo terminal at Ensenada, Mexico, just sixty miles south of the U.S. border.

“Tell him to check the bomb. If there is no damage, I want him to arm the device now, everything except the cordite charge, which I will load, and timer, which I will set myself. The device should be safe from here on out.” He wanted Yakov to remove the safety.

Nitikin waited for the interpretation and then replied, “Not until I know the target.”

“The target is not your concern.” Alim was getting angry.

“It is if you wish to deliver the bomb in one piece. Tell me, do you intend to transport it beyond the ship?”

Following the translation, Alim looked at him with a stern expression, but didn’t answer.

“Tell him I will not arm it until I know how it is being transported and where,” Yakov said.

Afundi ignored him for the moment and talked to the interpreter in Farsi. “What time do we expect the phone call?”

The interpreter checked his watch. “Any minute now. In fact, he is late.”

“I don’t want him on the bridge.” Alim dismissed Yakov with his eyes. “Tell him to go check the device to make sure there is no damage. And I want a report back.” Alim turned to his man with the assault rifle. “Watch him closely. And when he’s finished, lock him back in his cabin. I am holding you personally responsible.”

As he said it the satellite phone lying on top of the console rang. “Get him out of here.”

Larry Goudaz huddled over the desktop computer in his apartment as he cradled the phone against his shoulder and spoke into the mouthpiece.

“That’s right, he failed both times. If I were you, I’d get my money back, unless you haven’t paid him yet.”

Goudaz waited for the reply.

“Ah, your man is smarter than I thought,” Goudaz said. “How do I know? Because I had lunch yesterday afternoon with the mother, Maricela, the one who blew up and burned in her house the day before. She was here with the lawyer for her daughter-that would be Katia, Nitikin’s granddaughter, the woman he missed at Pike’s house and killed on the bus. She’s in the hospital in San Diego and recovering nicely, thank you. Listen, when this is all over, tell him I’ll send him a DVD. It’s a Road Runner cartoon. There’s a character in it you’ll recognize, he’s called Wile E. Coyote. I think he’s related to the Mexican you hired.

“Yeah, never mind, you’d have to see it to appreciate it.

“Listen, don’t…no, don’t worry, you can tell him that I took care of everything. Right now I have them running errands. And when they come back, I’m going to give them some urgent news and send them off on a vacation to Panama for a few days. How much time do you need?”

He waited and listened.

“No problem. I can give you more if you need it. Yeah, let me get paper and a pencil. I don’t want to put that kind of stuff in my computer. Just a second.”